“Who are you? What do you want?Where are you going? Why are you here?”

There are a lot of people who have more of a footprint in movies or comics or TV than JMS (aka Fearless Leader, aka The Giant Forehead, aka The Big Guy). But there’s no one – no one – who has as big a footprint in all three. The numbers speak for themselves: over 300 produced episodes of television; another 300+ published comics, 500+ published articles and four feature films, one of which received Oscar nominations. Many of the folks who know JMS writes television have no idea that he writes comics, a similar percentage of comics fans don’t know he writes movies, and the movie fans often have no idea of the work he does in comics, or as a producer. Everybody has a different piece of the elephant. (Not that we’re saying that JMS resembles an elephant – well, most days – we’re just saying.)

So it made sense to put all of those people, and all of that work, under one roof encompassing one really big tent. None of us wanted to make just one more vanity independent production company turning out one or two projects a year in one area; there are plenty of those in Los Angeles. The goal was to launch a mini-studio with the resources to create movies and comics and television series and web series and…well, whatever the hell we wanted to create. And, closer to the point of this part of the answer, to own what we create.

When you set up a production company attached to a studio, the studio owns what you create, and you are, to a degree, held hostage by their predilections, whims, corporate agendas and horoscopes. Some studios are forward-thinking, smart, creator friendly and have strong, well-considered long-term plans for their properties. And some studios are Warner Bros.1

The existence of Studio JMS means that we are the masters (and mistresses) of our own destinies, without being dependent upon, or at the mercy of anyone on the outside who may not get what we’re trying to accomplish. Being on our own in this fashion, we’ll probably succeed at some things and fail at others. And we’re totally okay with those odds.

1 Just kidding. We love you guys. But seriously, what the heck is it with you guys and Babylon 5?

There are a lot of good things about working with an established studio, network or publisher. You get access to the Really Big Cool Toys they own, from characters to budgets, universes and franchises to…well, you name it. That can be just a ridiculous amount of fun. By the same token, when you’re working in someone else’s universe you are, to a degree, typing with mittens on, because there are limitations to how far you can take an established character or universe, rules and regulations that existed long before you came on the job and will continue long after you’ve moved on.

Studio JMS was founded to be a place where we follow the creative path first and foremost, where there are no outside corporate agendas driving our stories, no pre-set notions about what we can’t do, where we can try new things and experiment and most importantly have fun telling the kinds of stories that we as fans of science fiction, horror and other genres would want to see ourselves.

Musician Harry Chapin once pointed out that there are two kinds of tired: good tired and bad tired. Bad tired, he said, can ironically be a day that you won, but you know that you fought other people’s battles, lived other people’s agendas, and there was very little you anywhere in there, so when you try to sleep you toss and turn, you don’t rest easy. By contrast, he said, good tired can be a day that you lost, but you know you fought your battles, lived your agenda, strove for your goals, and when you hit the sack at night you settle easy, you sleep the sleep of the just, and you can say to the universe, take me away.

Why Studio JMS?
Because we want to spend our lives being good tired.
As, by the way, should you.
Here endeth the lesson, and here beginneth the adventure….

Frequently Asked Questions

“Who are you? What do you want?Where are you going? Why are you here?”

The answer to those questions can be divided into two parts: commercial and creative.

The Team

J. Michael Straczynski

J. Michael Straczynski is the only writer to win the Eisner Award, the Ray Bradbury Award, the Saturn Award, two Hugo Awards, the Inkpot Lifetime Achievement Award and be nominated for a British Academy Award for Best Screenplay. In comics he's written The Amazing Spiderman, Thor, Supreme Power, Midnight Nation, Superman: Earth One and three Beyond Watchmen miniseries for DC. His film credits include Changeling, Underworld Awakening, Ninja Assassin, and Thor. In TV he created Babylon 5, Crusade and Jeremiah. In 2012 he and Patricia Tallman launched Studio JMS, a multimedia mini-studio whcih has launched a line of original comics via the Joe's Comics imprint at Image Comics, a web series for MTV.com, a feature film shooting in fall 2013 entitled The Flickering Light that he will also direct, and has received a 10 episode committment for a new TV series co-created/written and produced with the Wachowskis.

Patricia Tallman, CEO

Pat has been acting professionally in theatre since she was 15 years old. She is best known for her work as Lyta on the hit science fiction series, “Babylon 5”, and as Barbara in the cult film “Night of the Living Dead.” She has worked with such directors as Charles Nelson Reilly, Stephen Spielberg, Nora Ephron, George Romero, Robert Zemeckis, Barry Sonnenfield, Sam Rami, Walter Hill, Roland Emmerick and Jay Roach.

Twelve years ago, Pat shifted gears twelve ago to launch Talent To Go, a new business model created to help actors put their best foot forward in a unique marketing company dedicated to their success, an innovation that has empowered the careers of countless actors. She now brings that business acumen, innovation those professional relationships to bear on making Studio JMS a creative force with an active presence in every medium.